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- The Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) was a U.S. Army armored fighting vehicle acquisition program. General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) and General Motors Defense proposed a vehicle based on the LAV III. The Army selected the LAV III proposal over three other submissions. The LAV III was renamed Stryker. In a June 1999 communique, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki said "our heavy forces are too heavy and our light forces lack staying power." He called for heavy units to be "more strategically deployable, and more agile with a smaller footprint, and light forces must be more lethal, survivable, and tactically mobile." In remarks at Association of the United States Army meeting in October, Shinseki laid out his vision for a lighter, more transportable force. He called for a mid-weight unit that would strike a balance between heavy armor and infantry. Shinseki said such a unit would be especially capable for operations short of war. The Army was to do this by investing in an interim fleet that would herald the way to a much more advanced subsequent generation of vehicles (later called Future Combat Systems Manned Ground Vehicles). Shinseki said one of his goals was to reduce the service's logistics footprint, which makes up 90 percent of the it's lift requirement. He expected to make this possible by building future fighting vehicles on a common chassis and using mutually compatible ammunition. He proposed that these vehicles be light enough for intra-theater airlift via C-130. He expected that the generation of vehicles after its next fleet would be wheeled, which would be up to 70 percent lighter than the interim fleet. The technology for Shinseki's desired force was not expected to be ready until beyond 2010. In the interim, Shinseki sought to bring a prototype unit, using commercial off-the-shelf technologies, online by the end of the fiscal year. The 3rd Infantry Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, a heavy brigade at Fort Lewis, became the first to be converted into a Stryker Brigade beginning around March 2000. The LAV III served as the main surrogate for the IAV. Others included the Lynx, TPz Fuchs, B1 Centauro and M113. (en)
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